Wild Poliovirus

Wild Poliovirus

News: Mozambique has identified its first case of wild poliovirus Type 1 this week after a child contracted this disease.
• It is country’s first such case since 1992 and the second imported case of wild poliovirus in Southern Africa this year.
• As of today, wild poliovirus is endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

About:
• The WHO defines polio or poliomyelitis as ‘a highly infectious viral disease, which mainly affects young children’
• The virus is transmitted by person-to-person, spread mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and can cause paralysis.

When can a country be declared polio free?
• There are three types of variants of the polio-virus, numbered 1 to 3.
• For a country to be declared polio-free, the wild transmission of all three kinds has to be stopped.
• For eradication, cases of both wild and vaccine derived polio infection have to be reduced to zero.
• India was declared polio-free in January 2014, after three years of zero cases, an achievement that is widely believed to have been spurred by the successful Pulse Polio campaign.